With night time temperatures falling below freezing on a fairly regular basis, we figured it was time to fully winterize the chicken coop.When Carrie and Travis were here, we had cut and installed boards for under the coop to cut out any wind that might find its way into the coop, put down about eight inches of fresh pine chips for insulation and built new windows to fill the openings we had left open during the sumer months. Our latest project was to ensure that the birds had enough light to keep laying eggs (length of day is what determines egg laying, not temperature) and a ready supply of water that wasn't frozen. The first was easy, we ran a power cord down to the coop and hooked up a timer that ensures that they have an additional 3 hours of daylight.
The second required a little research. Thank God for Google, as that was the source of an inexpensive heat source created with one of these
and an old cookie tin which is then plugged in,
and sets directly below one of the girl's waterer. It keeps it just warm enough to prevent freezing but doesn't put them at risk for getting burned or electrocuted.
Tonight, the temperature is supposed to get down to 24 degrees so we'll close down the door to keep them as warm as possible. We're still averaging 4-5 eggs a day so everything must be working.
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